According to some college surveys, nearly 50% of student papers contain capitalization mistakes (shawnee.edu) and “unnecessary or missing capitalization” appears as error # 8 in the Top Twenty list. (Errors of capitalization did not occur on the original 1986 study “Twenty Most Common Errors.”) It’s no wonder that errors of this sort have increased to …
Capitalizing initial letters of sentences and proper nouns Read More »
The use of capitals is not only dependent on format guides but also with the settings and media. Electronic communications have relaxed the rules with capitalization as well as other graphics, such as punctuation. As evidenced by the occurrence of capitalization errors among undergraduates in a number of collegiate surveys, the use of capitals according …
Depending on your resource, the parts of speech of the English language have been counted as eight, nine, or even ten (the tenth listed was the numeral). I had always been taught that there are 8 parts of speech, and this number is still frequently given: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections …
This post builds on the previous post, “Reviewing simple sentences.” As we saw, ”simple” does not mean short or uninteresting. Simple sentences have several patterns: I. Subject — Action Verb II. Subject — Action Verb —> Direct Object II. Subject — Action Verb — Indirect Object —> Direct Object IV. Subject — Linking Verb <— Subject …
In this blog, we’ve discussed how native speakers of English have an unconscious knowledge of the language’s grammar – this is true of native speakers of all languages. Nonnative speakers and English language learners have to learn the grammar, and they invariably study that of Standard English, the variety that is in power and used …
In the previous post on sentence variety with adverbial modifiers, we saw how switching up word order and sentence patterns can create both emphasis and more interesting writing. There were quite a number of devices that can be used with adverbial modifiers because they include a single adverb, an adverb phrase, and an adverb clause …
Sentence variety with adjectives & other constituent parts Read More »
Sentences are rarely used in isolation, but rather are usually part of a paragraph with other sentences. In addition to relating the ideas they convey, it’s also helpful to consider their patterns when combining them into a paragraph. Sentence variety is an important tool for writers not only in making their point but also in …
An earlier post on parsing the English sentence played on the definition of parse (pars) v. tr. 1. To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of part. 2. To describe (a word) by stating its part of speech, form, and syntactical relationships in a sentence. (The American …
In my blog and newsletter, I have written about my preoccupations, not only about writing essentials and English fundamentals, but also about the social unrest and civil discourse around racial, economic, and sexual inequalities. Earlier posts focused on rhetoric, especially on how African American rhetoric developed not only for speaking well in public and legal …
Exhortation and Eulogy – African American Rhetoric Revisited Read More »
Disgruntled, like unkempt, discombobulate, and nondescript, is a part of a category of words with a “lost positive” – “one of those interesting negatives without a corresponding positive word” (Garner’s 806). This fact has led to discussions in print and online about whether gruntled is a word. In 1999, William Safire asked in his NY …